Answering My Own SEO Emergency Questions: A Self-Interview Before the Podcast Guests Arrive

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to spice up my podcast when I start bringing guests on. You know, it’s all well and good chatting away on my own, but sometimes you need another voice to keep things fresh. So, inspired by Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast (a personal favourite of mine), I’ve been working on a set of “SEO Emergency Questions” to throw at my future guests. The idea is to get unexpected answers, learn a bit more about the person behind the SEO expert, and just have a bit of fun really.

Thought I’d test out a few of these questions on myself first, see how they flow. So here we go.

What’s the weirdest backlink you’ve ever seen pointing to a site?

This one’s a bit odd, but bear with me. During the height of COVID, I was checking out backlinks to broadband.co.uk, specifically one of its mobile broadband pages. And what do I find? A link from a funeral director’s website. Now, at first glance, that seems a bit strange, doesn’t it? But when you think about it, it actually makes perfect sense.

This funeral director had started offering live-streaming services for funerals, so people who couldn’t attend in person due to restrictions could still be part of the service. They needed reliable mobile broadband to live-stream from any church or place of worship. So they linked to our page to help clients check coverage and find the right mobile broadband provider.

It was, in fact, a great backlink—relevant, targeted, good anchor text—the works. But still, seeing a funeral director linking to a mobile broadband page did catch me off guard at first. Just goes to show, you never know where your backlinks might come from!

What’s the most outrageous SEO request a client or boss has ever asked of you?

This one takes me back to the early days of my SEO journey. I was working as the Technical Director at a London-based marketing agency, handling the digital side of things—building websites and whatnot. We had some big-name clients: BAFTA (that’s the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, our equivalent of the Oscars),  Interflora, even some major airlines like American Airlines.

SEO was becoming a big deal, and clients started asking about it more and more. One day, my boss turns to me and says, “Ed, you’re now our SEO expert. We need you to go pitch our SEO services to this big client.” And I’m thinking, “Hang on a minute, I barely know the first thing about SEO!”

So there I was, thrown into the deep end, having to stand in front of these senior execs from massive brands and pretend I knew what I was talking about. Talk about imposter syndrome! But, in a way, that’s how I got my start in SEO. I had to learn fast, and it pushed me to really dive deep into the field.

Looking back, it was quite outrageous to be asked to do that with virtually no experience. But then again, I reckon a lot of SEOs out there have similar stories. Sometimes you just have to fake it till you make it, as they say.

What’s your SEO superpower, and what’s your kryptonite?

I’d say my SEO superpower is patience. In this industry, results don’t happen overnight. You’ve got to think long-term, build for the future. I’m perfectly happy to set up a site, pour resources into it, and then just let it sit for a year or more. Over time, it builds trust, authority, and starts to gain traction.

I’ve got sites now that are doing really well, but when we launched them eight or so years ago, they did absolutely nothing for the first 18 months or even two years. It takes perseverance to stick with it when you’re not seeing immediate results, but in the end, it pays off.

As for my kryptonite, well, that would be outreach. I’m not the best at putting myself out there—ironic, I know, given that I’m writing this blog and hosting a podcast! I live in a rural area, so getting to meet-ups or conferences isn’t always easy. Plus, I’m not naturally the networking type.

Outreach is so important for building backlinks and relationships in SEO, and I know people who are brilliant at it. They network effortlessly, build connections, and as a result, their sites benefit immensely. I, on the other hand, find it a bit challenging. Something to work on, I suppose.

What’s your guilty pleasure when it comes to procrastinating on SEO tasks?

Ah, procrastination—the bane of productivity! I’ve got a couple of guilty pleasures here. First off, I have a terrible habit of obsessively checking stats and analytics. I’m talking about looking at sales figures, website traffic, how many visitors are on the site right now—you name it. And I do this far more often than I should, probably every hour if not more.

It’s not the most productive use of time, especially when I could be creating content or working on other tasks. But there’s something addictive about seeing those numbers change.

My other guilty pleasure is a bit more domestic—I end up cleaning the house.

I don’t mind tidying up, and to be honest, I quite enjoy it. I’ll put on a podcast and start hoovering or doing the washing up. It’s a way to clear my head, get moving, and it feels productive in a different way. But sometimes I catch myself cleaning when I really should be at my desk cracking on with work.

I know all the productivity gurus say you should outsource tasks like cleaning to focus on your core work, but I find it relaxing. Still, it’s definitely a form of procrastination when there’s SEO work waiting to be done.

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So there you have it—a few of my SEO emergency questions and my own answers to them. I hope you found that interesting, maybe even learned a bit more about me and how I approach things. I’m looking forward to posing these questions to future guests on the podcast and seeing what insights they bring.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do any of these resonate with you? What’s your own SEO superpower or kryptonite? Feel free to drop me a line or reach out on social media.